EPS files and re-linked or re-imported to InDesign. WMF files which should be opened, converted to CMYK (if for press), re-saved as. Generally the line art (like the items shown here) will be saved as Illustrator-compatible vector-based.

If the MS Publisher file has been exported using the 'Take to a Commercial Printing Service.' as shown below (and hopefully it has), all the embedded images should be supplied in a separate folder, and you'll need to make sure the links are resolved to the correct image files. A little tweaking, removing Text Wrap and White Swatch fills will sort out the layout pretty quickly. Once the correct fonts have been installed (or appropriate substitute fonts) you'll probably find that the text sizes and leading will need attention. Either remove Text Wrap from the item affecting it, or check the Ignore Text Wrap box under Type/Text Frame Options. If you nudge a box which is being affected by the Text Wrap values of another element, the box will move around whilst leaving the text inside where it is. The converted file makes extensive use of the Text Wrap feature in InDesign, and tends to fill all text boxes with white, so be aware of this before trying to nudge text boxes and frames around. Original Publisher File (left) and Converted InDesign File (right) Here they are side-by side (MS Publisher on the left, InDesign on the right): The document will then be imported into InDesign. Select Markzware/Pub2ID/Convert MS Publisher® Document. Once activated, a new Markzware menu item will appear alongside the existing InDesign menu items. To convert the file, install your Pub2ID plugin into your InDesign Plugins/Filters folder. Here's a screenshot of the PDF version of the ad: When making any conversion it's a good idea to get your client to supply (if possible) a PDF file or a screenshot along with the Publisher document so you can get an idea of how the finished item is supposed to look. Here's a screenshot of the original advert in Publisher:Ĭonvert Publisher to InDesign: Publisher File The Publisher files were created using MS Publisher® on a PC and converted using InDesign CS4 and Pub2ID on a Mac.Ĭonverting an MS Publisher Advert to InDesign Case StudyĪll of the following examples (except the last one) were created using the standard templates available in MS Publisher and weren't edited in any way. The purpose of this article is to give an idea of what to expect from a standard conversion, with screenshots of the results you'll end up with. As Markzware makes clear though, even an approximate conversion is a great deal less time consuming than recreating a document from scratch. Markzware (the author of Pub2ID) is very open about these issues, and the accompanying user guide gives very detailed descriptions of what is and isn't supported by the plugin (which works with both InDesign CS3 and CS4). It has built-in 'Word Art', 'Border Art', 'Gallery Design Objects', 'Fill Effects' and numerous other Publisher-specific attributes and elements, all of which make an accurate Publisher to InDesign conversion more difficult. Unfortunately, Microsoft Publisher is more a law unto itself. Their built-in tools, shapes, text boxes, swatches, objects and text styles all behave in a similar way, making their conversions much more predictable. However, it'll never make as good a conversion as Q2ID or ID2Q because for all their differences, Quark and InDesign are in most functional respects extremely similar. I already use the Q2ID and ID2Q plugins which do a pretty good job of converting their respective formats, so I was confident that the Pub2ID plugin would perform similarly well and for the most part, it does. Recreating files is time consuming though, so I was interested to hear about the Pub2ID* plugin (*now discontinued) from Markzware. MS Publisher® can be a particularly unwieldy format to receive from a client, and more often than not we have to ask them to supply a PDF file which we can recreate from scratch, since there has been no reliable way (that I've found) to convert the files.

In a graphic design studio you'll see pretty much every format of document over time, and most of them can be either improved upon or converted for use in a more press-friendly program like InDesign or Quark XPress. Convert Publisher Files to InDesign Using the Pub2ID plugin

Save in publisher to indesign